Schwindel mit Solarstrom in Spanien*
This week, Matthew, I will be pretending to save the planet …
I was amused to find this article (in German, unfortunately!) which claims to have unearthed a new and interesting “Spanish practice”.
You may or may not be aware that in order to encourage people to provide “renewable energy”, EU governments have decreed massive “feed-in” subsidies for preferred energy types. This means that if you have, for example, solar panels generating more electricity than you need, they will pay you a generous sum if you will feed your excess back into the grid. The sum is so generous, that it actually pays people to (I am not making this up!) direct their home lights at the solar cells to generate energy when the sun will is not bright enough. So, people are simply running their home lights onto the solar panels when it’s cloudy or the sun is not fully up, and it’s still worth their while.
Of course, they wouldn’t have been caught if they hadn’t been insanely greedy:
… it was established during inspections that several solar power plants were generating current and feeding it into the net at night. To simulate a larger installation capacity, the perpetrators connected diesel generators.
In other words, the feed-in tariff was so good, they could afford to buy diesel generators and run them, pretending that the power was coming from their solar cells. Generating power in a terribly inefficient manner, and coining it in the name of saving the planet. With taxpayer money.
When will people actually say “enough is enough”, I wonder?
*Spanish Solar Swindle
- Scamming “Green Energy” – Spanish Style — Behind Blue Lines
- April 14, 2010 at 15:24
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
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1
April 14, 2010 at 08:09 -
The law of unintended consequences, we are surrounded by them our predicament today was caused by them. Stupidity and prejudice in abundance, reason and common sense in short supply, we are all guilty of it. We will reap that which we have sown and we will suffer the consequences of “unintended consequences” and suffer considerably.
Will we still carry on making decisions and acting on them without thinking through all the ramifications of those actions, of course we will.
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2
April 14, 2010 at 08:14 -
3
April 14, 2010 at 08:19 -
Thaddeus, a German friend sent me that info a few days ago and I thought it was an April fool. (Her email was entitled April Fool).
I’ve had the green brigade here trying to sell me solar. For goodness sake, we hardly get daylight in winter far less sun.
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4
April 14, 2010 at 08:40 -
Ausgezeichnet!
More proof, if it were needed, of the essential baseness of human nature. The conscientious occupants of the environmental moral high ground will never be a match for low cunning and greed.
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5
April 14, 2010 at 09:07 -
What a bright idea. Looking forward to when the feed-in tariff here is good enough! Got a south facing roof in the South West of England, so I should be coining it. Add a few high-intensity halogens for the winter, and I’m sorted (must remember the time-switch though!)
Thanks Gordon, your idiocy has finally made me some money (potentially).
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6
April 14, 2010 at 09:19 -
Sadly, the EU never believes that enough is enough, hence why they keep wasting billions on schemes like this and the Emissions Trading Scheme.
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7
April 14, 2010 at 10:34 -
And all this for the fiction of AGW, and that CO2 a harmess trace gas, is a deadly pollutant.
But of course, this was never about saving the planet, but a technique for raising taxes. In Britain, our PM Brown has been spending money like a drunken sailor, dropping money in the billions on each of his foreign trips. Now the money is gone, and even the lenders don’t wish to give him anymore. So we are having an election to see which of the two main parties is going to drive the UK to bankruptcy.
The real problem is the EU. It is from this totally unaccountable bureaucracy that all these superbly unrealistic laws emanate.
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8
April 14, 2010 at 10:37 -
Diesel
Make sure that there are no insurance problems (re fire), before installing PVs.
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9
April 14, 2010 at 11:38 -
“So we are having an election to see which of the two main parties is going to drive the UK to bankruptcy”.
I think the UK has arrived at bankruptcy, So we are having an election to see which of the two main parties is going to get us out of bankruptcy or deeper into it.
If the problem is not recognised then there can not be a solution and so far none of the parties are showing signs that they are vaguely aware that a problem of any magnitude exists.
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10
April 14, 2010 at 12:03 -
Diesel, the ‘good enough’ feed in tariffs arrived in the UK on the 1st April. How apropo.
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11
April 14, 2010 at 12:24 -
Surely it would be simpler just to take from the grid and feed it back in again. I don’t know the how much it costs or how much they pay but on the face of it sounds like it would be profitable. A few mock up solar panels on the roof and your in business.
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12
April 14, 2010 at 13:16 -
I dont mind the Spanish cheating,they’re worth it.
The British insects just let the Politicians do it for them.
British jerks even stand outside in rain for a smoke.Ola y Adios
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13
April 14, 2010 at 15:51 -
” To simulate a larger installation capacity, the perpetrators connected diesel generators.”
How thick must they be?
Simply short-circuit the output from your fuse-box to the input of the panels’ outlet via appropriate gizmos & you’ve made yourself a Money-Making Machine. Don’t forget the time switch that interrupts the supply during hours of darkness.
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14
April 14, 2010 at 21:14 -
They could save even more by using red deisel in the gennies.
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